UNREST MAGAZINE

I recently came across an article titled “ A faith-based aid revolution in the Muslim world” on Integrated Regional Information Networks (IRIN) website, which pointed out the massive scale of charitable giving among Muslims around the world. As the article points out: “Every year, somewhere between US$200 billion and $1 trillion are spent in “mandatory” alms and voluntary charity across the Muslim world, Islamic financial analysts estimate.” While the western world is riling in recession, this money from the Arab countries and Muslim populations in the West can be a potential source of humanitarian assistance and aid. Given this “revolution“ in Aid and the massive economic slump that the global economy has witnessed since 2008, I believe that we need to re-look at the discourse around faith-based giving and “Global War on Terror,” (GWOT)as it has in many cases impeded the flow of money and resources to humanitarian relief projects. This discourse has created a fear complex, even among individuals, who donate out of piety and not any ideological inclination.
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Occupy Wall St., also known as the Occupy Movement or, simply, Occupy, began as a call to action from the anti-consumerist magazine Adbusters to “occupy” Wall St. on Sept. 17, 2011. What happened next is the subject of many books — most of which extol the movement — along with newspaper articles, television news segments, and public chatter from all sides of the political spectrum. Nonetheless, it is self-evident that the movement did not achieve its major, although mostly implicit, goals: to abolish corporate-elite governance and restore democracy for the so-called “99 percent.” [1]  If this had been achieved, it would have been to the delight of millions of people in the United States and billions around the world, for there is no question that popular opinion was on the side of the movement — at least in the beginning.
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For those new to contemporary, post-Seattle/WTO anarchism, CrimethInc. may not be a term all too familiar.  For the rest of us, these folks are seen as a prominent voice in the modern radical milieu, publishing a series of widely ready books, pamphlets, magazines, films, websites, etc.  CrimethInc. manages to mix lifestyleist politics with highbrow theory, and wrap it all in a well designed package of allure and militancy, masked with a bit of clandestine conspiring.  Call them escapist provocateurs or the modern day Situationists, they are a force to be reckoned with.
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Nino Chubinishvili has created her own Alter-Modern world in Tbilisi.  She is not self-described adherent of Deleuzian Multiplicities or Hardt and Negri’s Multitude.  She has just created her own world.  Sometimes this happens at her own studio in Arts Academy, in some cases in her own house on Mtatsminda region, or sometimes even at “Mukha Tsakatukha” Café, where many alternative artists visit and chat.  She smoking a flower like an Eastern woman and is dressed like a Western Woman.  But she does not identify with any of those worlds necessarily – she has created her own.  One can’t help but think of Frantz Fanon’s “Algeria Unveiled” – the protest of women, who sometimes hid behind the veils and sometimes dressed totally like European women in order to confuse colonizers.    In the face of liberal cultural colonization of Georgia, Chubik (as her friends call her since childhood) has discovered her own identity, which is different.
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With North Korea threatening to carry out nuclear strikes aimed at South Korea and the United States, the question of safe uranium enrichment has re-emerged in political debate.   Common sense would argue that for the good of our species, regimes should not be able to stockpile Weapons of Mass Destruction.  International controls such as the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), or rigorous inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), have been put in place to help prevent abuses.  While North Korea’s actions capture the spotlight due to a verbalized willingness to use their missiles, the current meetings between the West and Iran beg us to consider another aspect of the nuclear question.  Should the two states be treated the same when it comes to uranium enrichment?  Why should a country that has not explicitly violated these safeguards, nor invaded another country for two centuries, be subject to Western antagonism?
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What are the differences among the three?
How can they work together where there is chaos to restore order?

To achieve the best results after a natural disaster or violent conflict, organizations involved in humanitarian assistance, development, and peacebuilding need to work together, in a symbiotic relationship, building off of their combined strengths and helping each other where there are weaknesses. To work well together, individuals and organizations need to understand not only the strengths and limitations of their own field, but of the other two fields as well. Unfortunately, many who work in one of those fields do not know much about the other two or where the three fields should intersect and where they separate.  
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